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“My laptop shit the bed. Thought you wouldn’t mind me borrowing yours and working on those updates you wanted.”
“Oh.” I had asked him to clean up my laptop a few weeks ago. He’s been too busy. Until tonight it would seem. “Sorry you have to spend your Friday night on such mundane things when you should be out partying.”
“Yeah,” he says with a roll of the eye. “I was just about to reboot if you wanna do that.”
“I’ll do it later,” I say, pushing it closed.
Rigger freezes as he watches me commit the felony of failing to restart after an update. Cracks me up how anal he is about these things. But restarting my computer is the least of my concerns.
“So. I guess Benny the Baby Snatcher didn’t take too kindly to the wigs.”
“He did not.”
“Did you tell him you two could take turns being the redhead?”
“You’re a real asshole. You know that?”
“I’m the asshole? You’re the one who was playing him like a fiddle just to get another man’s name.”
“Play him like a fiddle? I suppose you’d be different about it?” I snap.
“Sure I would. Buy him dinner and a drink. Let him feel me up a little.” He grips his pecs, squeezes them and wiggles back and forth.
I glare him down, pulse racing from irritation. Sometimes I want to punch him square in the face.
“Oh, come on,” he laughs. “Let’s go get a drink and you can fill me in.”
Sometimes I do think Rigger takes a little pleasure in seeing me fail. But only when he’s worried about me. It’s like he wants the chance to remind me that I need him. Pisses me off.
Five minutes later, we’re sitting at the hotel bar among a handful of others. We pick a table as far away from everyone as we can get, me with a margarita and Rigger with a tap beer. I search the room for a familiar face. I don’t know why I thought Ben might have stopped here to load up on a beer before heading back to Atwood. But he hasn’t. Probably a blessing in disguise.
“So, plot twist. Ben isn’t in cahoots with King after all.”
Rigger is completely neutral as he sips his beer. “How did you manage to glean that information?”
“At the cookout, his sister had a few too many and mentioned something about him missing Mason. Well, I don’t know who Mason is so I ask. And he tells me …that was my son.” I lean forward and pull the straw into my mouth, sucking down enough margarita to give me an instant buzz. Rigger stares at me, unfazed. “He didn’t elaborate. At first. But then he saw my wigs and put two and two together. I had to confess. Which spurred this whole conversation.”
“What exactly did you confess?”
I fill Rigger in on the highlights of our conversation.
“You’re lucky walking away from you is all he did. I was about to knock on your door and pretend to be room service when I saw him leaving. Had to restrain myself from kicking his ass right there.”
“Rig. He’s innocent. I’m the one who lied to him. Walking away was the only logical thing for him to do.”
“Innocent my ass,” he chuckles.
“You don’t believe me?”
“I don’t believehim, Tove.”
“I was there. He’s serious.”
“The only thing he’s serious about is bullshitting you.”
“How do you know?”
“I have a dick. That’s how I know.”
